Will there be a ripple effect from layoffs announced by the Cape’s major employer this week? At the Salvation Army in Hyannis, Majors Ralph and Donna Hansen have been tightening the chapter’s belt for weeks already.

“What we’re trying to do is address the issue before it becomes a crisis here,” Ralph Hansen said of an economic struggle that predates, and is much wider than, the Cape Cod Healthcare job cuts.

“We’re seeing a lot more people coming in for food and mortgage and utility payments and everything else,” he said. “It’s people we’ve never seen before. They’ve never had to ask for assistance.”

Some, individuals more used to giving than receiving, break into tears as they ask for help. “Some are people who have donated to us in the past,” Hansen said.

The Salvation Army will start work in earnest on its Christmas programs, including Dress a Live Doll, next month. “We have no idea what the economy will do with that,” said Hansen. “We’re sitting on pins and needles.”

Numbers bear out the feeling that things are taking a turn for the worse. The Army chapter in Hyannis serves breakfast and lunch Monday through Friday. The count for the morning meal has gone from 30 to 40, and lunch from 95 to 120.

Next door, at Housing Assistance Corporation’s NOAH shelter, 30 people a night above the overnight facility’s capacity of 60 are joining guests for the evening meal.

“Many coming to our door are not homeless, but they are desperate for help,” HAC vice president of operations Allison Rice noted in a press statement. “Their desperation only increases as the weather turns colder and they add to their household expenses the cost of keeping warm.”

The hours of Alan Burt, coordinator of the Salvation Army’s Overnights of Hospitality program, have been cut from 20 to 10, effective Sept. 1.

“It has always been the Hyannis Corps of the Salvation Army who has immediately responded to the crises and needs that have fallen upon our community,” Burt wrote in an e-mail message. “It is with great sadness that we must now report that we are in crisis ourselves.”

Hansen isn’t ready to call the situation a crisis, but he said the Salvation Army is taking steps to reduce costs. The agency’s two vans, one with 117,000 miles on the odometer, are scheduled carefully to get the maximum out of runs.

“We’re watching the lights,” Hansen said. “We’ve had energy audits here at the building and the parsonage. We’re changing light bulbs, looking into new insulation.”

Hansen said he has to be concerned about “the entire operation of the Army here. Overnights is just one of the programs. We had to cut Alan’s hours back, the janitor’s hours back.”

He worries about cutbacks in the Army’s programs for children, mentor programs and arts education, which includes piano and guitar as well as creative dancing and mime. Here, too, he’s scaling back, asking parents to bring their children in rather than have them picked up by the Army vans.

“We need people to be aware of all our programs so they can be like ambassadors, telling people what we do,” Hansen said.

The Army’s presence in Hyannis has a spiritual side, as reflected in Sunday services at 11 a.m., Sunday school that day at 10 a.m., adult Bible study at 7 p.m. on Sunday, and a Wednesday night prayer and praise meeting at 7 p.m.

“The motivation behind everything we do is we feel that’s what God wants us to do,” Hansen said. “We take Matthew 25 very seriously, to feed the hungry, visit the sick and help the poor.”

The Hansens know that their agency’s work is supported not only by donors but by a network of similar organizations on the Cape. “Nobody can do it all,” he said.

To help the Salvation Army’s efforts, call 508-775-0364 Monday through Friday from 9 a.m. to 4 p.m. Monetary donations to the Salvation Army may be sent to PO Box 369, Hyannis MA 02601. To support the meals program at the NOAH Center, call facilities director Heidi Walter at 508-778-7525 or send an e-mail to
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